Life of Pi Part 2, Chapter 53 - 69

The next day, the feeling of exultation at the discovery of supplies fades as Pi realizes that he will eventually be killed by the tiger. He lays down to cry but finds a reserve of courage within himself that pushes him to go on living, and shedding fear, he begins to craft a raft for himself. He uses the oars, lifebuoys, and anything else he can find to create a raft for himself. This process is interrupted by the Hyena whose actions finally bring Richard Parker out of his den as he kills the smaller predator with relative ease. Pi is dumbfounded by the creature’s grace and majesty, while the tiger turns to Pi with a ferocious baring of his teeth. The tiger tries to attack Pi but he is saved due to the uneven surface of the tarpaulin, and the rocking motion of the sea. Pi manages to distract the tiger by throwing a rat at him, and the tiger hungrily eats the rat before returning to the dead Hyena for feeding.

Pi uses the momentary distraction to go abroad on his flimsy raft, but before he does so he notices some vomit that confirms his suspicions about the tiger’s seasickness. It begins to rain, and Pi manages to collect some rainwater for drinking, while Richard Parker returns to his den under the tarpaulin. The raft Pi creates is rather flimsy, and so Pi begins to consider ways of getting rid of the tiger from the lifeboat but is unable to reach a suitable solution. He decides that he will pursue a war of attrition as he’ll wait for the tiger to grow weak from starvation and thirst. It rains throughout the night and it begins to clear up in the early dawn. Pi’s wild resolution from the previous night suddenly appears untenable as he recalls that tigers can drink seawater and that the tiger would probably just swim over onto his raft to eat him when it grew too hungry. Pi believes that fear is the only true opponent of human life, as it slowly grows in the mind to consume the whole being.

Pi’s concerns for survival are smoothed over by the tiger who is now satiated after having eaten the hyena and drinking the rainwater. The contented animal makes a chuffing noise called pursten that Pi recognizes as a friendly sound despite never having heard a tiger make it. He decides to tame the tiger and uses one of the whistles to make himself frightening to the tiger just as he had seen lion tamers do in the circus. He begins to read the survival manual which allows him to form plans for fishing for food, collecting rainwater, improving his raft, and training Richard Parker. He is suddenly overcome with the realization of his loneliness and weeps. He returns to the boat and notices that the tiger has marked the floor of the boat with his urine, so he decides to mark the tarpaulin as his territory by peeing on it. He sets up the solar still for collecting freshwater and creates a mast for his raft. He notices the many types of fish that occupy the ocean as he tosses a cockroach from the boat into the water and watches the fish devour it. He returns to spend the night on his raft and wakes in the middle of the night. He realizes that his suffering is taking place in a grand setting. Pi weeps as he prays, and returns to sleep.

The next day Pi tries to use the fishing tackle with bits of his leather shoe as bait, but he fails to catch any fish. He returns to the boat with the hope of discovering some further aid in the toolbox just as he is beginning to realize that Richard Parker remains an ally only until Pi can provide him with food and water. He is struck in the face as he is going through the locker, and he thinks it's Richard Parker, but it turns out to be a flying fish. Pi attempts to throw it to the tiger but the fish manages to return to the ocean, just then a whole school of flying fish appears and leaps out of the water as it attempts to escape dorados. Pi feeds some of the fish to Richard Parker, while he catches hold of one and attempts to kill it. Pi, a lifelong vegetarian, feels acute pain at having to kill an animal and only manages to do so after he covers the fish up with a cloth and then breaks its neck. He cuts up the fish to use as tackle and uses it to catch a beautiful dorado which he feeds to the tiger after using his whistle to indicate his status as the alpha, the provider of food. Pi thanks the Hindu god Vishnu for taking the form of a fish when he’s struck by the beautiful colors of the Dorado’s body. He also realizes that human beings can grow used to many things, as his second kill of the dorado is far easier than the killing of the flying fish.

The next day, he is happily surprised that the solar stills have managed to create potable water which he drinks with relish, and gives plenty of it to Richard Parker. He then realizes that he has been traveling in the lifeboat for nearly a week now. The adult Pi tells the writer about the many castaways that survived on the open seas, none of them compared to Pi, who had been at sea for 227 days. He explains how he stopped keeping track of time as he buried himself in his routine of praying, fishing, cleaning equipment, and observing Richard Parker. His initial hesitation of killing animals retreats as he kills fish, crabs, and turtles without qualms. He is saddened by the turn of events but comforts himself with the glitter of fish scales that cover his skin, comparing it to the symbols of the divine from Hindu Mythology. Pi’s clothes wear away due to the saltwater and sun, leaving him sun-exposed to the elements which soon begin to cause him painful boils that make sleeping difficult. He tries to learn navigation from the survival manual but gives it up as he has no true means of steering the boat. He had learned later onwards that he had been drifting on the Pacific Equatorial Counter Current.

Pi finds the sea life growing under his raft to be an interesting distraction, as he observes the crabs, shrimps, and algae that begin to grow there. He tries to eat them all and finds that the crab alone seems to taste good. Pi’s sleep pattern changes significantly as anxiety keeps him from remaining asleep any longer than an hour, but Richard Parker sleeps often and deeply. Pi spends long hours observing the tiger’s favorite sleeping positions and uses his rocket flares whenever he sees a light on the horizon. Pi understands now that his only hope of survival lies in reaching land, but the rocket flares serve as a reminder of Pondicherry with their slight smell of cumin.

Analysis

In part one, Pi explains the hierarchical structure that operates when a group of animals lives together, and how the lion tamer uses that dynamic to train his animals. In this section, we witness Pi put these principles into practice as he attempts to assert dominance over a fully grown tiger aboard a small lifeboat. Pi uses the tiger's weakness of seasickness to teach him to fear Pi's territory along with the tiger's reliance on Pi as a source of food and water. It is also interesting to note that the tiger is represented by Pi in the second version of his story, as such the tiger can be seen as a facet of Pi's personality. In this light, we understand that Richard Parker killing the hyena is a metaphor for Pi shedding his civility to kill the cook that murdered his mother.

Survival is an important theme of Life of Pi, and the reader can track the gradual process by which Pi is forced to abandon his principles to survive. In the animal version, Pi's first kill is a fish which reduces him to tears due to his lifelong vegetarianism. This desire to survive becomes more evident as time continues to pass without an improvement in his circumstances. Pi's use of his urine to mark his territory on the lifeboat is yet another example of his survivalist mindset. The erosion of his clothes from the sun and seawater is a symbolic point of equivocation wherein Pi becomes naked just like the wild tiger with whom he shares the boat.